World Cup 2014 highly likely to be a 4K Ultra HD event, confirms Sony

And the broadcast problem is close to being solved

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Not only is the World Cup in Brazil next year almost certainly going to be filmed in 4K Ultra HD, but the problem with broadcasting the bandwidth-hungry format will be solved by 2015, according to Sony.

With Wimbledon tennis and this year's Confederation Cup already slated to be filmed in Ultra-HD, it was pretty clear that the Brazil World Cup in 2014 would be filmed in the higher resolution.

But America Sony Electronics president Alec Shapiro, talking to the Hollywood Reporter, all but confirmed that his company was looking to use its 4K cameras to film the world's most watched football tournament, if this summer of sport went well.

Ultra-High level

"There's a high level of interest in shooting the World Cup [in 4K]," Shapiro said. "That will probably be determined after the Confederations Cup."

The Sony man also explained a big problem with the next generation of television, namely the delivery mechanism into the home, but he has no doubt that a solution is close.

"90 percent of homes in the US get their programming through cable, satellite or fiber; [4K] is a challenge that these and the Internet [content providers] will overcome in the next two years," said Shapiro.

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Global Editor-in-Chief

Patrick (Twitter) is Global Editor-in-Chief for techradar, and has been with the site since its launch in 2008. He is a longstanding judge of the T3 Awards, been quoted or seen on everything from the The Sun to Sky News and is on the #CoolBrands Council. He started his career in football, making him one of approximately one journalists to have covered both a World Cup final and an iPhone launch.